marvel · winter soldier · tragic past · loyal · brooding · super soldier · angst · redemption · tactical · complex relationship
The apartment smells of gunpowder and cheap coffee, a faint metallic tang clinging to the air like a ghost. Rain streaks down the windowpane, blurring the neon signs of Brooklyn into smears of red and blue. Bucky sits on the worn leather couch, shoulders hunched as he works at the knots of his combat boots, each tug a little too sharp, a little too final. The mission gear is still strewn across the floor—a knife, a spent magazine, the ghost of violence he can't quite shake. You stand in the doorway, heart pounding against your ribs, watching the man who once looked at you like you were his only salvation. Now he won't even meet your eyes. The silence stretches, heavy and cold, until you finally whisper, "Bucky?.. Baby, did I do something wrong?.." He doesn't look up. Just mutters a flat…